This report is Part One of a two-part series on the Iraqi elections, and specifically the Nashville portion of that process. Part One sets the stage for the election operations. Part Two will include interviews with election officials. As of this writing, Part Two is still in the research phase, because of interview restrictions placed upon some Iraqi election officials.

On Tuesday, 01 February 2005, this writer attended the final session of ballot counting for the Iraq Out-of-Country Vote (OCV) Project. The OCV operation was conducted in 36 cities in 14 countries, with the goal of giving election access to as many Iraqi refugees and expatriates as possible, within the mandated deadline for elections. The OCV was conducted under auspices of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The IOM was established in 1951 as an intergovernmental organization to resettle European displaced persons, refugees, and migrants. The headquarters of the IOM is in Geneva, Switzerland, with 19 Field Operations, and a consolidated administrative center in Manila, Republic of the Philippines.

Under rules established by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI), the IOM was authorized as the sole agency to conduct voting operations on behalf of the IECI. This was based upon the IOM’s record of conducting elections after conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor. Further, the IOM also conducted an OCV project that allowed expatriate Afghans, living in Pakistan and Iran, to participate in that country’s first democratic election.

The headquarters for the Iraq OCV Project is in Amman, Jordan. Six cities in Iran, five cities in the United States (Washington, DC; Chicago; Detroit; Los Angeles; and, Nashville), four cities in Germany, and three cities each in Canada, Great Britain, and The Netherlands were among the sites for the project. Other participating countries were Australia, Denmark, France, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

In some of the cities, multiple registration and polling locations were established. In the United States, the number of locations was kept to a minimum for security purposes. The security plan for Nashville was used as a model for other US cities. Security was, indeed, significant in both overt and covert ways. This writer became aware of certain information that indicated an active terrorist threat against Nashville; but, officials have refused to confirm information regarding an alleged car-bomb plot. Some of the information was linked to apparent laser attacks against airliners; but, officials have designated at least one of these attacks as a “prank”. However, the FAA has long kept records on laser incidents, as shown by this unclassified report. Almost ten percent of laser incidents in the past 15 years have occurred in the two weeks prior to the beginning of the Iraqi election process. The US Federal Aviation Administration has a standing policy about the effect of lasers on flight operations; so, the concept is not new to government officials.

On 29 December 2004, the IOM announced the US locations where the Iraq OCV Project would take place. Two days after that announcement, a laser beam was shot at the cockpit of an airliner. The airliner left Nashville for Chicago. Both cities were on the announced list; and, Nashville has the highest Kurdish expatriate population in the United States. Despite saying that the source of the laser was “unknown”, the FBI was quick to say that the incident was not related to terrorism. (Of course, this is the same FBI that said the same thing about Flight 800.) Although most of the news attention has been focused on the “flashblindness” effect of lasers, the more dangerous possibility is that of laser-guided missile attacks. The US Department of Homeland Security is working on the development of at least two prototype systems to counter such attacks. A report from DefenseWorld.net says that 35 such attacks have taken place worldwide, with 24 aircraft shot down, and over 500 deaths. (Perhaps the FBI would label these as “pranks”, or the statistics as “coincidences”.) But, the “coincidences” do not stop there.

Terrorists have long used bank robberies to fund their operations; and, that trend continues in modern times. During the same two-week period prior to the Iraqi elections, two Nashville banks were robbed on the same day, by the same person. The robber might have been of Middle Eastern descent, as shown by these surveillance photos. Also during the same time period, this writer personally observed a carload of Middle Eastern people closely watching aircraft as they departed from Nashville International Airport. The problem is that the people in the car were purporting to be doing something else. (Other information of a similar nature has also come to this writer’s attention; but, it is not releasable at this time.)

Laser incidents, bank robberies, and target surveillance — all occurring within the same time frame, leading up to the Iraqi election process. Such information would not surprise anyone, if the reports came from inside Iraq. But, coming from inside the United States, these reports should put to rest any beliefs that active terrorist threats can only occur “somewhere else”. How did the Iraqi expatriate population, and the Iraq OCV staff, react to the possibility of terrorist interruption of the elections? Details coming in Part Two.